"You did," B replied, and lit a Nat Sherman.
"I know I should have killed the fucker, okay? I know that. I just wasn't-"
"No, no, no," he interrupted, waving his cigarette about dismissively. Smoke oozed from his nostrils. "Truth be told, dear, I'm impressed by your restraint. Can't say, in your position, I'd have let the wanker off with nothing more than a kiss."
"Okay, Bosco, that's a relief. So, if you're not pissed at me for leaving Rizzo alive-"
"There's another matter."
Isn't there always?
I turned my head, staring at him instead of the ceiling. It was a pretty boring ceiling. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew a series of perfect smoke rings.
"Look, I'm tired. I need a shower and I need some sleep. So, can we talk about it tonight?"
"Afraid not, precious. The customers are rather insistent the matter in question be resolved quickly. I can't say I blame them, given the particulars. Also, they're hardly the sort we can afford to fob off because you need to freshen up and get some shut-eye. You've heard of the Maidstones, I trust?"
I had. Of course I fucking had. Anyone whose business involves the nasties and their hangers-on knows about Edgar Isaac Maidstone and his clan. The three Mayston brothers had arrived in the Colonies sometime in the early 1800s, having ditched England to avoid prosecution for a variety of ghoulish crimes: grave robbing, witchcraft, kidnapping, cannibalism, murder, and . . . well, it's a long list. At some point, they'd changed their names to Maidstone and prospered, which is a lot easier when you have the sort of otherworldly connections those three had. Some people, they might call themselves necromancers, and brag about once having made a cadaver twitch. Shit like that. But the Maidstones, they were the real goddamn deal. More than once, Maidstones had taken demon brides, and it showed, both in their prowess and their appearance. Edgar Maidstone had (still has) a big-ass house over in Newport, and from the outside it might be any stately Gilded Age mansion, but inside the place is rotten to the core.
"One of their daughters has gone missing," B continued. "Amity, the youngest."
"And . . . what?" I shook my head and went back to staring at the boring ceiling. "How's Edgar Maidstone's inability to keep tabs on his brats got anything to do with when I'm allowed to brush my fucking teeth?"
B whistled between his teeth, the way he sometimes does when he's impatient.
"Edgar Maidstone," he said, "isn't yet aware that his sweet-sixteen Amity is missing."
"Which brings me back around to what the fuck this has to do with me."
"Two nights ago, Quinn, I was approached by the elder daughter, Berenice-"
"I know her name," I said, and thumped the ceiling. The driver glared at me from the mirror, so I thumped it again, twice as hard, and smirked.
"-who, aside from her sisterly concern-"
"Fuck that, B. I've heard those two hate each other like cats and dogs."
"-wishes, and not unreasonably so, that Amity Maidstone be located before their father discovers she's missing. Ergo, Amity is forgoing the family's usual, and I will admit, considerably more effective, resources in tracking down her sister's whereabouts."
I thumped the ceiling again. When the driver ignored me, I considered kicking his seat.
"So, put what's his name-Shaker-put Shaker on it. I'm sure as hell no sort of detective."
"That's exactly what I did," B told me, "and now he's vanished, as well."
"What a shame. Send flowers to his widow."
Mean Mr. B scowled and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Since when, kitten, have you acquired the privilege to pick and choose which assignments you will and will not accept from me?"
"Not a detective," I repeated.
The car rolled through a stop sign and someone blew their horn. I don't think B even noticed. Not like he had to give a shit about traffic laws. I'm pretty sure he was invisible so far as the Providence PD were concerned; too bad that invisibility has never rubbed off on me.
"As I recall, you did a fair enough job last summer."
He was referring to how I'd managed to unravel the mystery of my part in the squabble between the Bride and Evangelista Penderghast.
"That was stupid luck, and you know it," I told him. "Plus, it cost me a goddamn finger." I held up my left hand, minus its pinkie. I'd bartered the finger for information when I'd run out of leads in just who had set me up so it looked like I'd offed a vamp bitch named Cregan, which had put me on the Bride's radar to start with. It hadn't been much consolation when my inner wolf wound up eating the rat-bastard asshole who'd sold me the intel.
"And a toe," he reminded me. Because, you know, I might have forgotten.
"And a fucking toe. And fuck you, because there's enough on my plate without playing Nancy Drew."
"I'm not asking. You know that."
Yeah, I did. I knew that like I know the sun rises and sets. Like I know dead people get up and walk around if you ask 'em just right or pay off the right sort. Like I know loups have bad table manners.
Like I know a lot of stuff.
"So, no more fuss and nonsense," he said. "Be a good girl and find Shaker for me. I'd prefer to have him back. And please have a talk with Berenice. She's a student at Brown. Be polite. Wear clean clothes."
"I hate you."
"We all have our crosses to bear, precious."
The boy behind the wheel pulled over at the intersection with Wickenden.
"Stay in touch, Quinn. And take care not to disappoint me. It isn't necessary to stress how much is riding on this situation."
There was nothing left to say, and I didn't waste my breath not saying it. For the time being, I was still firmly under B's well-manicured thumb. The way things stood, if I dared walk, I wouldn't last twenty-four hours on my own. He'd seen to that, making sure I ticked off all the wrong bad guys so I'd need his protection for a long, long time. Without another word, I got out of the Buick. I stood there a moment, staring at the blood caked under my nine fingernails, then turned for home again.
CHAPTER TWO
THE GIRL
Most of what I knew about Berenice Maidstone and her wayward kid sister had been covered in the backseat of Mean Mr. B's silver Buick. I'd be going into this affair just shy of blind. He hadn't slipped me a hush-hush dossier filled with the deepest, darkest secrets of the two or a Mission: Impossible – style "this tape will self destruct in ten seconds" cassette. Yeah, I could undoubtedly have fished out a few more details if I'd had the presence of mind to speak up. But I didn't, and I wasn't about to call him back. "Oh, hey. I'm a dipshit and totally forgot to ask, but . . ."
No. I'd had enough of his gloating for that particular day. So, could'a, should'a, would'a. Now move on.
She's a student at Brown. Her and about ten thousand other people. Thanks, dude. That's a lot to go on. Still, over the months since my death, I had cultivated a couple of contacts who, in turn, had a couple of snitches. It was a hit-and-miss, ragtag string of confidential informants who had to be compensated for tips that rarely panned out, but it was slightly better than nothing at all. Back home I made a couple of calls, the second to a back-alley dealer in pilfered karma and memories who went by Cutter. He occasionally fed me the lowdown on someone, and, in return, I mostly left him and his operation the fuck alone. Anyway, he promised to call me back as soon as he had time to see what he could dig up, as regards the specifics of Berenice's comings and goings at BU.
"It's important, Cutter."
"Gotta be delicate on this one," he sort of whined. If ferrets could talk, they'd sound like Cutter. "Prying into the Maidstones, that's some dangerous undertaking."
"No shit, but that's the score."
"You don't ask much, do you?"
I kicked an empty Narragansett beer bottle at the door. It didn't break. "Dude, you want me to go tellin' B you're being anything less than cooperative?"
"Quinn, you know it ain't like that. You know-"
"Shoulder to the wheel," I said. "That's all I'm asking. Come up with something good, it'll buy you a couple of months hassle free."
"Well, I know this hacker-"
"I don't care how you do it, just do it."
Jesus, I love talking shit to douche bags.
I tossed the ridiculous Hello Kitty iPhone onto my puke-colored sofa, undressed, and spent the next half hour or so standing under the showerhead, letting the hot, hot water hammer my back and shoulders, my face and chest. The morning's encounter with Rizzo kept playing over and over in my head, and despite B's insistence that all was cool and no damage had been done by leaving the son of a bitch alive, I was fairly certain it was only a matter of time before that act of "mercy" came back to take a chunk out of my ass. By the way, when the loup Jack Grumet bit me that July night out at the Scituate Reservoir, he'd bitten me in the ass, so there was a precedent. B had bigger fish to fry at present, and that's the only reason he hadn't reamed me for not putting Bert Rizzo down.